


The Hope Only of Empty Men

by notthebees



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, I dunno it's very light on it, M/M, Really not slashy at all, Treavor Pendleton is a very sad man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 05:12:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3638040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthebees/pseuds/notthebees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Treavor Pendleton is lonely and sad and scared, and he wishes for a friend—or, at least, for someone who isn't a stranger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hope Only of Empty Men

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a little hazy on timeline specifics. I don't think this contradicts anything in the game, but I'm not positive, so please let me know if something's wrong!
> 
> I envisioned this story as taking place shortly after the Loyalists move into the Hound Pits for good. Corvo's execution is in a week or so; Teague Martin is (unbeknownst to any of the Loyalists) a couple days from being arrested by the Abbey. It's that awkward dead period between the finalization of plans, and the setting of those plans in motion.
> 
> Title is from T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men."

It was late at night, as he lay on a thin mattress beneath a strange roof, when the magnitude of his actions finally struck home.

 

At long last, after the furious bustle of the last weeks, after the nervous whispers and messages passed in secret, after the blood vows and the frenzied motion of conspiracy and resettlement, came the stillness.  Treavor did not immediately recognize it as such.  At first he had only perceived a curious absence.   _Servants_ , he thought.   _Ceremony.  Noise._  But the longer he lay awake, what had seemed an unnameable lack became instead an almost palpable presence.  It wasn’t the nothing—that which was not there—that made his limbs twitch restlessly in the darkness, but the something that was.  And that something, he realized with a twist of dread in his chest, was the stillness.

 

It was not the healing stillness of rest after labor.  No, it was the awful moment of utter stillness between the deep intake of breath and the piercing howl of horror, or anguish, or rage.  The stillness of that instant, just after the executioner releases the rope, that the guillotine blade hangs suspended before plummeting.   _Only_ , Treavor thought, _I won’t know whether I’m the man with the rope or the man beneath the blade until it lands._

 

The stillness coiled around his chest and settled heavily in his stomach, and he realized he was panting for breath.  It was curious: he had slept but little since that fateful meeting with Havelock on the steps of Parliament some two months prior—but when he slept, he had slept soundly.  Exhausted, he supposed, by nerves and necessary preparations and sheer excitement at his own daring.  Now, though, his fate was in the hands of a man who currently languished in prison and was slated to die in a matter of days, and there was nothing to be done but hope fervently for Corvo’s success.  

 

It had seemed so simple, the plan had, when Havelock and Martin explained it with their usual  easy confidence, talking of contacts and favors owed and who could be trusted and who must be eliminated.  Not easy, no, but simple.  Linear.  Now, Treavor realized, trying to unfold it all in his head, it was almost unfathomable in its potential complexity.  They had no way of knowing what sort of man Corvo would be upon his release from Coldridge—how angry, how broken, how pliant.  Whether he’d be capable of holding a knife at all.  Havelock’s man in Coldridge had last reported that Corvo was in possession of all his senses and limbs, but that was several days ago, and who knew how desperate for a confession Burrows would become as the execution date drew near?  And the point upon which the entire conspiracy turned—Corvo’s escape—was how probable, exactly?  Treavor had asked Martin, privately, for such a figure that afternoon.  “It doesn’t matter,” Martin had said almost flippantly.  “It’s beyond us now.”  Treavor had nodded at the time, but here, in the dark, in the oppressive stillness, he despaired.   _It’s hardly a plan at all.  It’s just a series of events we’re hoping will occur.  There are no certainties—none but death, should we fail.  Should Corvo fail.  Should any of the parts of this grand machine fail.  And there are so many parts._

 

It wasn’t regret: that much he knew as he lay there in silence.  Nor was it doubt.  Nothing had _happened_ yet, and there was nothing to regret nor any cause for doubt.  It was the interval of helpless waiting between the action and its consequence.  Not regret, but irrevocability, just as the silence was not peace, but a momentary stasis.  And his and Havelock’s and Martin’s lives in the balance.   _No safety net, either_ , he thought with a new stab of fear.   _Not now._  Of course, he had _known_ that when he drew the knife across his palm and bled with the rest of them, just as the wire-walker _knows_ , as he secures his line, that he has no net to catch him.   _Yes, but not until he steps onto the wire does he truly_ believe _it.  And I believe it now._

 

Still his breath came in constricted gasps.  The stagnant air rested too heavily against his thin chest, and as hard as he exhaled he could not seem to displace it.  Unbidden, a memory swam to the surface: a teenaged Custis sitting on his chest, crushing him, pinning Treavor’s arms with his own, while Morgan pressed a scrap of cloth over his nose and mouth.  He had writhed uselessly beneath them like a insect on a pin, scrabbling against the floor and wheezing in fright, until Morgan began pouring the water through the cloth and his whines had turned to choking.  The water kept coming, and he tried to scream, to beg them to stop—he’d say anything, do anything— _just please—stop—let me breathe—I’m drowning—you’re drowning me._  He didn’t remember blacking out, but he remembered the punch to his gut that woke him, and he remembered vomiting.  He had lain in a puddle of his own watery sick long after the twins had fled, chest aching and tears of terror and humiliation running down his face.  Only Wallace had frowned in concern at the wet, painful cough he’d carried for days after.  (“Are you ill, Master Treavor?”  Treavor shook his head.  Though all Wallace said was “hmph,” he’d slept on a pallet at the foot of Treavor’s bed for a week.)

 

_Always weak_ , Treavor thought, and a spasm of disgust crossed his face, though there was none there to see it.  The old self-loathing, which had usually confined itself to the hours between dusk and dawn, when he was alone—which he had learned he could press down and quiet with wine or whiskey—welled up with a vengeance, and he felt the tell-tale stinging in his eyes as the tears welled too.  It was familiar, the shame and fury directed inward, but since he had cast his lot with Havelock and Martin, he hadn’t felt it once.  Had he thought that siding with brave men would make him brave?  Had he convinced himself, for a moment, that they had plucked him from among countless other witty nobles, not for his wealth, but for his courage?   _Fool_ , he cursed himself.   _Fool and coward both.  One night in this stinking pub, and you’re ten years old again, weeping like an infant and struggling for breath._

 

Before, on nights such as this, before the plotting and treason, he would rise from the soft bed in his lavish quarters at Pendleton Hall, make his way to the kitchen, and return with a bottle of Tyvian red.  The route was so familiar he suspected he could do it blind—which, Wallace had fretted on more than one occasion, he soon would be if he kept drinking like that.  Now an entire cellar of liquor lay only a few floors down.  Everyone else was probably sleeping, and it wasn’t as if any of them would dare prevent him from availing himself of the pub’s stores.  And yet—the thought of descending deeper into the thick silence, that yawning dark, filled him with dread.   _It wouldn’t be so bad if there were only someone else out there.  Even if it were only Lydia or that serving girl._  He strained his ears, hoping desperately for any sound or hint of movement in the hall or the pub below.  Nothing, not even the skittering of rats.  

 

And suddenly the old nightmare enveloped him.   _He was a child, only five or six.  His brothers had tied him to his bed.  As he struggled, the ropes became vipers, and he was screaming, tumbling from the bed, flinging open the door and emerging in the dark hall.  He screamed for his mother, his father.  A light was on at the end of the corridor, and he ran for it, but when he reached it, it was dark, and the light was on in another, farther room.  He raced through dark hallways, chasing that solitary distant light, wailing for his parents, for servants, for_ anyone _, even the twins.  Faster and faster through the darkness, with growing horror at the slow realization that he was alone, utterly alone, running circles in an empty house._  He would awaken with a start, shuddering, too afraid to sleep again.  As a child, before he knew better, he would pad quietly to Wallace’s room in the servants’ wing, shake him awake, and with a plaintive cry ask Wallace if he could stay with him.  Later, after his father had told him he was no longer to do that (“Lords do not sleep in servants’ quarters, Treavor.  And they do not let bad dreams frighten them.”) he would light all the lamps and spend the rest of the night reading.  Or, more and more, he would drink.

 

_It wouldn’t be so bad,_ he thought again, _if there were someone else—not just awake and pacing the halls, but here with me._  At home, at least, the servants knew him.  His brothers knew him.  Oh, they filled his every waking moment, and a fair portion of his dreams too, with misery, but they _knew him_.  Here he slept in a strange room surrounded by strangers, and a sudden wave of abject loneliness broke over him and bore him down.  In this place, as in this conspiracy, he was friendless and alone.  

 

Well.

 

Not quite.

 

Before he fully registered where he was going or what he was doing, his feet were already on the ground.  It was just as well; the conscious thought of it would have precluded any action on his part.  Instead he was stealing through the darkness past a row of closed doors, thinking nothing, feeling nothing but the overwhelming desire for closeness—to be near _someone_ , to be not alone.  And so he found himself opening Wallace’s door with a creak and edging into his room.

 

Because Wallace— _Wallace had followed him here._  Wallace had followed him _everywhere_ , his entire life.  It was his job, of course.  He lived to serve Treavor.  He was dependent on the Pendletons for his meals and board, and always had been.  But surely, _surely_ —and this is what Treavor had no choice but to believe, because the alternative was too dark, much too dark—Wallace must care for him, for Treavor the person, not just Treavor the lord and master.  Elsewise he might have gone straight to the City Guard when Treavor told him of his meeting with Havelock.  He might have betrayed Treavor at any hundred moments in the last two months, but instead he had stayed.  Wallace was the only person alive who might show him the slightest affection without demanding coin in return, and so Wallace _had_ to care for him, or else Treavor really was—

 

Wallace bolted upright at the low creak of the door’s hinges, and as his expression shifted from shock to worry, Treavor’s certitude melted.   _What was he doing?  What was he thinking?  This was a mistake.  Oh, no, this was a terrible—_

 

“Is something amiss, Lord Pendleton, sir?”, alarm on his face and the rasp of sleep lingering in his voice.

 

Treavor’s voice failed, and he stood rooted to the spot.  Treavor Pendleton, of famed wit, grasped vainly for the words, unable to articulate what he had come there for, what it was he had needed so desperately that he had staggered here in the dead of night with the tracks of dried tears still visible on his cheeks in the light from the street lamps that poured through Wallace’s window.

 

The silence dragged on, until with only the slightest tremor in his voice, Treavor managed to mumble, “No.  I’m sorry.  I—nothing.”

 

Wallace gave him a long, searching look—the kind he would give Treavor as a child, after incidents when the twins had cornered him at last.  The sort of look that noted fresh cuts and bruises, that was piecing together events, even as he never took his eyes off Treavor’s.  Embarrassed beneath that steady gaze, gentle though it was, Treavor cast his eyes down.  To his surprise and further chagrin, he realized his hands were trembling.  He folded them beneath his arms, only to find that his shoulders were shaking too.  What a sight he must look, Lord Treavor Pendleton, teary-eyed and quavering in his nightshirt, in a servant’s room in a filthy pub in the Old Port District.

 

He should leave, he knew.  Leave now, and deny any memory of it in the morning.  Chalk it up to sleepwalking, if Wallace mentioned it.  But Wallace was still _looking_ at him with such unexpected tenderness, and slowly, as if Treavor was an animal that might startle ( _or a child frightened by a nightmare_ , he thought), he shifted over on his small cot, and peeled back the blankets from the empty side.  “Sir…Treavor…” he said softly, and nodded once, slowly, toward the space.

 

The relief that washed over Treavor nearly brought tears to his eyes again.  Without further prompting he crossed the room and sank slowly into the warmth and safety of Wallace’s bed.   _It’s not proper it’s not fitting but it’s warm.  Wallace is warm.  And he knows me._

 

Still trembling like a leaf and breathing raggedly, he buried his head in Wallace’s chest and curled himself against the man, shuddering harder at the shock of human contact.  A whimper escaped his lips before he could stifle it; there was such a comforting solidity to Wallace that he hadn’t known since....well, since he was a child and had crawled, weepy and shaking, just as he was now, into Wallace’s bed in Pendleton Hall.  “Shhh...shhh...you’re alright,” Wallace murmured, covering Treavor with the blanket, then wrapping his arms around the delicate man and drawing him closer.  “Don’t fret….shhh.”

 

Treavor relaxed slowly, muscles unbunching group by group, as Wallace ran one hand up and down his spine—hardly any pressure, just a brush of fingers—and with the other hand smoothed the hair at the back of Treavor’s scalp.  Treavor let loose a single piteous sob, muffled against Wallace’s chest.  “W-Wallace…”

 

“Shhh,” cooed Wallace, and he laid a light kiss to Treavor’s cheek, salty with dried tears, then to his brow, then to the crown of his head.  The press of his lips was almost unbearably gentle.  Slowly, slowly, his shivering slowed and ceased altogether.  “It will be better in the morning,” Wallace whispered.  “You’ll see.”

 

No longer like a shroud, but like a blanket, the stillness settled again over the Hound Pits.  The expectation, the bated breath, was still present in it, but it was the breath between wakefulness and slipping into dreamless sleep.  It was stillness, yes, but it was the peaceful sort.

  
Feeling at peace for the first time in a very long while, Treavor exhaled slowly and let himself drift.


End file.
